Ireland Travel Search: Ulster: County Derry (Londonderry) (Derry) Northern Ireland Visitor Information Tourism Directory


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Ireland > Ulster > County Derry (Londonderry) (Northern Ireland)

Londonderry, or Derry as it is increasingly called (The British added the prefix `London' to Derry during their occupation in 1609 and it has been a major point of contention ever since) is a rich and very interesting region. Although another previous hotspot during the 'Troubles', it is a friendly land of wild sea coasts, wooded lowlands and mountains, and lovely cultivated fields. Derry city, the capital of Londonderry is like a miniature Oxford with its own version of Oxford's `dreaming spires'. It is a lovely vibrant city and a `must visit', home to the lilting 'Londonderry Air' - sung (often badly - but always with great passion) at a billion weddings around the world every year - by its best known other name - `Danny Boy'. Derry has a turbulent bloody history involving battles between Catholic and Protestant forces, and a major siege in the 17th century during which about one quarter of the city's inhabitants died.

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Two centuries later, Derry became one of the main ports in Ireland for emigration to the USA. A statue commemorating this stands in Waterloo Place, depicting a departing family. A direct sea link between Glasgow and Derry has just resumed, cutting more than 160km off the journey between the Scottish and Irish destinations. The Derry Boat has a long history. The service started in 1813, under sail, ferrying seasonal agricultural labourers from Donegal to work in Scotland, as well as cattle and goods. After the Irish potato famine of 1848, thousands of Donegal residents sailed for Glasgow. The route was axed in 1966. The new Derry boat is a fast ferry, covering the route in five hours.

Derry's Old Town on the West Bank of the River Foyle is surrounded by walls built in the early 17th-century, making it Ireland's last walled city. Despite numerous attempts, the walls have never been breached, which earned Derry the nickname "the Maiden City" (hmmm - a touch of 'politically incorrect' 17th-century humour there). From the walls you can glimpse a number of defiant, politically charged murals adorning the Catholic Bogside region below.

Tower Museum up on the walls relates Derry's story and will give you details of the city's turbulent past. The Cathedral of St Columb, with its dark pews, dates from 1638 and is noted for the grim skull-and-crossbones wall tablet in its north aisle. County Derry's flag, by the way, depicts a skeleton sitting on a little seat, its head tilted to one side as if in contemplation, with a castle in the background. The skeleton is believed to represent a 14th-century Anglo-Norman knight who fell foul of the deranged and ferocious Red Earl, Richard de Burgo. Frothing with rage, the Red Earl hurled the knight into a dark dungeon, where he starved to death. A number of restaurants do good business in the walled city - too bad the knight wasn't able to enjoy them.

Bishops Gate nearby dates from 1789 and has a number of fine carvings. On from this is the Double Bastion with its cannons still pointing out over the Bogside where hundreds of years ago the Jacobite army camped below.

A more modern and extremely sobering memorial is the Bloody Sunday Memorial in Bogside, commemorating the terrible day on 30 January 1972 when a British Para Army division killed 13 protestors during a civil rights march.

For early aviation buffs, the Amelia Earhart Centre is at Ballyarnet County Park commemorating the first woman flier to cross the Atlantic - but she goofed, landing nearby in 1932 thinking she has made it to Paris. Whoops! She was however a brave, charismatic and resourceful flier, going on to become probably the most famous woman aviator the world has ever known.

She disappeared on the 2nd July 1937, somewhere in the North Pacific on her way back to Los Angeles after circumnavigating the world. President Roosevelt spent an unprecedented (for that time) 6 million US dollars in a fruitless search by the US Navy for her remains.





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